It is important to accurately space insulated multiple conductors with respect to each other, for ease of mass termination and other reasons, and laminated flat or ribbon, cable has increasingly come into use for this purpose. Both controlled regular spacing and controlled irregular spacing, of multiple conductors in ribbon cable form has been achieved, in the prior art, by laminating accurately spaced insulated (or uninsulated) multiple conductors between thin plastic film, such as 5 mil polyvinyl chloride (pvc) film or 5 mil Teflon* film. FNT * Teflon is a registered trademark of E. I. DuPont de Nemours, Wilmington, Del.
Multiple twisted pairs of insulated conductors have also been accurately spaced, in flat or ribbon cable, by laminating multiple pairs of twisted conductors between thin plastic film, the twisted pairs being first laid onto a lower plastic film, and encapsulated and accurately oriented by an upper plastic film laminated to the lower film. The use of twisted pairs of multi-conductor cable is of great importance in the field of communications, data processing and other applications where cross-talk, in signal transmission, must be kept to a minimum.
Laminated, multi-conductor cable of the type described is readily strippable, for mass termination purposes, or may be readily connected directly to insulation-displacing connectors (IDC'S) readily available in the art.
Where a particular electrical application requires mass termination of multiple conductors in a very confined space, laminated cable of the prior art may not be satisfactory because the intermediate portions of the flat cable may not be readily re-formed or rearranged into the confined space, even though the mass termination advantages of the laminated cable are still highly desirable. For example, a telephone junction box may have a limited amount of space, within which a plurality of electrical connectors must be placed very close to one another, together with a plurality of electrical conductors connected thereto. In such instances, the prior art, so far as we are aware, has utilized, primarily, individual termination of a multiplicity of individual conductors, and thereafter compressing or bunching the intermediate portions of the terminated, individual conductors to accomodate the remaining or available space within the junction box. There is little use of the laminated cable form in such applications because the intermediate portions of the laminated, flat, cable cannot readily be reformed to accomodate the very limited confines of the junction box.
The applicants herein are aware of the following U.S. and foreign patents:
______________________________________ PATENTEE ISSUE DATE PATENT NO. ______________________________________ Soelberg 9/3/74 3,833,755 Kigler 5/7/57 2,791,624 Gore 3/19/63 3,082,292 Dahlgren 12/28/65 3,226,473 Gordon 12/15/70 3,547,718 Wittenberg 5/29/73 3,736,366 Hackethal-Draht Und Kabel-Werke, A.G. 3/28/67 French 1,479,288 ______________________________________
These patents all relate to various forms of laminated, multi-conductor, cable but do not present a solution to the aforedescribed problems.
The advances in the art set forth herein are directed, primarily, to a multi-conductor cable comprising precisely laterally aligned straight conductors, twisted pair conductors, or a combination of precisely laterally aligned twisted and straight conductors (of the type set forth in co-pending application Ser. No. 545,582, assigned to the assignee of this patent application) wherein after the mass termination of laterally aligned conductors has been completed, the remaining intermediate portions of the cable may be readily re-formed as by compression, bunching or the like, to readily assume a desired shape which fits within the limited space available in an optimum fashion.